This Sacred Child

“ Whenever we move into the new and unknown with the trusting spirit of a child, innocent and open and vulnerable, even the smallest things of life can become the greatest adventures”.

I feel guilty for being beaten as a child. Every time My mother raised her hand and inflicted pain on my body I felt guilty for doing something wrong, for being something wrong. I felt guilty for causing her so much pain that the only thing she could do was hit me. I feel guilty for these words coming forth from my fingers with the intention of sharing with all of you. I feel guilty for not keeping the secret of my abuse.

I have written and re-written this blog countless times, skirting the emotional truth hiding behind the words. Trying to describe 'what happened' or tell a story, I have told the story of my abuse more times than I care to remember. Having to repeat it to the next case worker, the next therapist, the next teacher, the next friend and on and on into a numbing pool of words that had lost their meaning. It became a tale, like any other, that I could just tell and not have to feel any more. Now, here, I am endeavouring to be more honest, to write with intention and meaning. To use my words to convey to you the journey of who I am, in this body, with the hope of putting this story to bed by reuniting it with it's feeling and meaning.

Over the week leading up to a shadow session I booked with London Faerie I allowed pieces of myself that dissociated as a child to return to my body and become present. Slowly like a tide coming in, parts of me returned. The day before my session I hurt my finger. As pain rushed in to my hand and arm so too a great part of the child inside myself, lost in the corners of my subconscious, returned in the rush of pain. As the pain subsided I was filled with confusion. I didn't know where I was for 30 seconds.... as I became more and more present memories began to play in my mind and I felt the emotions of each event as if for the first time. Gently I showed myself my life over the last number of years and allowed myself to cry and laugh and feel.

A feeling of coming home radiated from my heart, raw and vulnerable I sat with myself, I held myself. I cried. The morning came of my shadow session and I found myself sitting in Faerie's lounge. Warmly greeted we spoke for a small while before beginning our session. Setting intentions for the session I acknowledged all I wished to let go of and all I wished to gain. Faerie and I connected and I let go in trust as much as I could, breathing into the courage that was rising up within me. We walked to the partitioned work area, where once I stepped across the threshold terror waited for me. I took a deep breath and walked into the nightmare of my childhood.

Age 7 my mom was brushing my hair and I was moving too much so she hit me hard with the brush and told me to stay still. I felt shock and pain as she brushed my hair harder.. to hard.. and it hurt. I moved again and again she hit me. I felt I was bad irredeemably and didn't know how to please her. As an adult I've felt like I hold 'myself the child' and sooth her as I unravel and heal the untruths I created.

Child protective serves took me and my siblings away from my mother a couple months after I turned 15. My Mom had kicked me out of the house then a month later punched me in the eye. I went into foster care and my younger brother and sister went to live with their father. It took many years and a lot of therapy and now my mom and I speak monthly and have a fairly good relationship. We have enjoyable conversations.... and I have to be in the right mental and emotional space to speak with her.

My father was only physically there at conception. He was not there for the pregnancy and he was not there for the birth or any of my childhood. I met him when I was 22. My mother was married briefly for a year when I was 5 years old and they fought so much us children were, to a great extent, ignored. After him there were no other men who lived with us.

Faerie lead me in and began brushing my hair, hard, too hard. Then he tied me up with rope...first around my heart then lead me blind folded around the room. It was as if he put on the costume of my mother, sounding like her, saying things the way she did, acting in the same emotionally spastic way she used to. I began to laugh nervously, it's something I've always done, as good girls smile even when scared. I was punished for laughing and reprimanded, both in the session and in my childhood. I was then tied to a massage table with rope and experienced the smothering love and brutality that was my existence till I was 15. More deeply I allowed up the terror of my youth, except this time I held myself in it. I stayed present and allowed it out of me. I found my lost voice which had been smothered silent. All the parts of me that dissociated came back and stayed, as an adult I could feel the fear and hold myself in it. In this experience I found out I am enough and I never have to experience that terror again, it's gone. I am free.

The session came to a close and I was untied till the last knots around my heart. I untied those knots. I felt the freedom flow in as I undid those pieces of rope, as though they had always been there suffocating my heart and I finally pushed them out and untied them. I got off the table and walked into another room with Faerie, where we had a wonderful and caring cuddle. It felt good to be in contact with him, and good to feel completely safe within myself.

I am all that I am. It has always been a sad story I've wished to hide, so I can seem perfect because I thought for a long time approval came from all of you. I so badly wanted your approval. The truth is I have scars both on the inside and on the outside. It's those scars that shape my path in this life and ultimately lead me to experience who I am that is not my mind, that is not my body, that is not my persona. It's my scars that have shown me that approval comes from within me, and I can give it to myself when ever I need it. It's my scars that have made me strong and guided me to be able to love as deeply and generously as I do. I am a courageous being who thrives by taking risks and Now have the ability to guild others to do the same, to step into their power.

If you're curious about London Faerie please look at his website